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editorial

Prince Harry attends a mission briefing in the British controlled flight-line in Camp Bastion southern Afghanistan. The Prince, who is serving as a pilot/gunner with 662 Squadron Army Air Corps, is on a posting to Afghanistan that runs from September, 2012 to January, 2013.POOL/Reuters

Prince Harry managed to do what many might have thought impossible: offend the Taliban. The third in line to the throne gave frank interviews before ending his mission as a helicopter gunner in Afghanistan in which he admitted he had fired on Taliban fighters and likely killed them. He was neither boastful nor apologetic; he just spoke as a soldier.

It is in this context, then, that he did make a rather unfortunate comparison between his Apache helicopter gunmanship and his prowess with computer games.

Whether a Prince should be talking like a soldier even if he is a soldier, putting his life on the line as soldiers do, would be a debatable point, except that he has succeeded in wounding the pride of the Taliban. This can only be considered a bonus of his service.

The Taliban, the self-declared freedom fighters who ruthlessly target children and women as they enforce, gangster-style, a medieval vision of Islam on Afghan citizens, are all that is truly offensive here. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

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